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CAGW: USPS is in Financial Distress

For Immediate Release
Contact: Curtis Kalin 202-467-5318

August 11, 2017

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) expressed continued frustration following the release of the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) third quarter financial report for fiscal year (FY) 2017.

The agency reported a loss of $2.1 billion in the third quarter, which was $573 million higher than the same period in 2016. Over the last decade, USPS has lost a total of $63.6 billion.

CAGW Vice President for Policy and Communications Leslie Paige said in a statement:

“As massive losses continue for USPS, the agency seems to be in a state of denial. The Postmaster General and USPS’s unions are pressuring the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to allow substantial price increases for first-class mail customers in another desperate attempt to avoid reforms that are long overdue to address the USPS’s broken business model. The PRC should resist any pressure to alter what little fiscal discipline currently exists at USPS. Until Congress institutes stringent market-oriented reforms and the agency makes hard financial choices, USPS will continue to dwell in financial purgatory.”

Background:

USPS is currently in the midst of its 11th consecutive year of net losses.

The agency has reached its statutory debt limit of $15 billion and has more than $120 billion in unfunded liabilities.

USPS also announced it will, “likely default on up to $6.9 billion in payments for future retiree health and pension benefits for the fifth straight year.”

USPS has already defaulted on a total of $33.9 billion of benefit payments.

On July 11, 2017 USPS bowed to union pressure and agreed to an across the board pay raise and added benefits.

The Postal Reform Act’s costshifting of retirement funds to Medicare would further damage a program that will be insolvent by 2029.

A March 2015 report by Sonecon CEO Robert Shapiro found that USPS has an $18 billion advantage over similar private sector companies. Even with these enormous financial benefits, massive agency losses persist.

The Government Accountability Office has consistently placed USPS on its High Risk List.

CAGW is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.